Mrs. Schneider: A language exchange. You can find a German partner. While you improve your German, you help him improve his English.

Paul Martens: Das klingt gut.

Paul Martens: That sounds good.

POST CONVERSATION BANTER

Judith: Alright, so maybe we should have some tips about how to practice German wherever you are.

Chuck: Well, I’d say you should come to Germany.

Judith: Well, if you’re not in Germany it’s not an excuse not to practice. There are always some things you can do, like get a language partner even if you’re not in Germany. if you’re in a major city or in a university town, they’re bound to be some Germans or maybe some Austrians, Swiss people. You can always find some people to practice.

Chuck: Just like you saw in the dialogue, there was an American living in berlin. There’s bound to also be, say, a German living in Chicago.

Judith: Yes.

Chuck: Or you can go to the German language meetups. I know I went to one quite regularly in New York while I lived there. It’s where German expats as well as German language enthusiasts get together to speak German and exchange stories.

Judith: Or you can surf the German internet. I love browsing the internet in other languages. You can use a browser plug-in to automatically give you translations, so you don’t need to use a dictionary.

Chuck: At the beginning, German blogs are a good choice. If you follow the news closely, German news sites might also interest you cause you’ll be able to understand a lot from context.

Judith: There’s a site, [Deutsche Welle]. They offer news in particularly simple German, I mean not on the main website but on one of the sub-points, navigation you can find ‘News in Easy German’. They also have slow news.

Chuck: It’s also an interesting idea if you’re in a hotel room and you’re just bored because [Deutsche Welle] is in a lot of countries and a lot of hotels.

Judith: Also, you could watch some German movies, maybe use some subtitles. German subtitles will really help you learn more because you will be able to understand more words. You could also watch it with English subtitles, of course, but then you’re likely to not pay as much attention to the German. Or you could watch German TV. If there’s none locally, you can look online. Various German TV stations offer at least some of their program online.

Chuck: You can also listen to German podcasts. We know that you listen to podcasts cause you’re listening to one now, but you can listen to ones that are from other Germans speaking German.

Judith: Or you can get German books. The library is bound to have some, or maybe an online book store. Stay away from the classics, those are hard for Germans even. But you could get some bilingual books, for example, I mean books with German and English side by side, or you can get books that you already read in English.

Chuck: In any case, I hope our suggestions help get you started. Do you have more ideas? Let us know in the comments. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson.

VOCAB LIST

Chuck: The first word we shall see is.

Judith: [Schade]

Chuck: It’s a pity.

Judith: [Schade, schade]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Klasse]

Chuck: Class.

Judith: [Klasse, Klasse, die Klasse] and the plural is [Klassen].

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Meinen]

Chuck: “To mean” or “think”.

Judith: [Meinen, meinen]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Schreiben]

Chuck: To write.

Judith: [Schreiben, schreiben]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Besonders]

Chuck: “Especially” or “special”.

Judith: [Besonders, besonders]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Korrigieren]

Chuck: To correct.

Judith: [Korrigieren, korrigieren]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Niemand]

Chuck: Nobody.

Judith: [Niemand, niemand]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Sache]

Chuck: Thing.

Judith: [Sache, Sache, die Sache] and the plural is [Sachen].

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Lehrbuch]

Chuck: Textbook.

Judith: [Lehrbuch, Lehrbuch, das Lehrbuch] and the plural is [Lehrbücher].

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Stehen]

Chuck: To stand.

Judith: [Stehen, stehen]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Tandem]

Chuck: “Tandem” or “language exchange”.

Judith: [Tandem, Tandem] The word is neuter and the plural is [Tandems].

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Austausch]

Chuck: “Exchange” or “replacement”.

Judith: [Austausch, Austausch, der Austausch] and the plural is [Austausche].

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Partner]

Chuck: Partner.

Judith: [Partner, Partner, der Partner] and the plural is the same.

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Während]

Chuck: “While” or “during”.

Judith: [Während, während]

Chuck: Next.

Judith: [Verbessern]

Chuck: To improve.

Judith: [Verbessern, verbessern]

Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson.

VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE

Judith: The first word we look at is [Dazu].

Chuck: “In addition to that” or “about that”.

Judith: [Ich lerne viel dazu].

Chuck: I learn a lot of new stuff.

Judith: [Dazu kann ich nichts sagen].

Chuck: I can’t say anything about that.

Judith: So the difference between “in addition to that” and “about that” is the stress. If you say [Dazu] with the stress on [Zu], then it means “in addition to that”. And [Dazu], with a stress on the [Da], means “about that”. Then we have a sentence [Dann korrigiert mich niemand].

Chuck: If you hear that in literal English, “Then corrects me no one”.

Judith: Yes.

Chuck: [inaudible 00:07:57] funny.

Judith: In German it’s normal because you want to stress the “Dann”, like if I do this then… Ok, next one. [Im Lehrbuch stehen].

Chuck: To stand in a textbook.

Judith: “To be written in a textbook”. Germans tend to make this mistake because we say [Es steht im Buch] so in English they would say “it stands in the book”, “it stands on that sign”, but they mean “it’s written on there”. Ok, last thing. I'm not sure if you noticed, but we saw both [Sprach] and [Sprachen] as a prefix in this lesson. This is one of the annoying things about German compound nouns. There’s no good reason for it to be [Sprachtandem] but [Sprachenaustausch].

LESSON FOCUS

Chuck: The focus of this lesson is the use of [Zu]. A lot of times, when English uses the infinitive in a sentence, German uses the preposition [Zu]. Can you give some examples?

Judith: Yes. [Wir haben nicht viel Zeit Deutsch zu üben]

Chuck: We don’t have much time to practice German.

Judith: [Ich habe keine Lust nach Hause zu gehen]

Chuck: “I'm not in the mood to go home.” The rule for these cases is to place the [Zu] immediately in front of the verb.

Judith: This means that when you have two verbs piled up at the end of your sub clause, the [Zu] is placed in the middle, like [Schlafen zu gehen].

Chuck: “To go to sleep.” And when you have a splitting verb, the [Zu] is inserted between the prefix and the verb stem. Can you give some examples of that?

Judith: Yes, like [Mitzukommen].

Chuck: To come along.

Judith: [Abzugeben]

Chuck: To give away.

Judith: [Wegzugehen]

Chuck: To go away.

Judith: And so on.

Chuck: [Zu] is essential when making a sub clause with [Um]. [Um] always requires a [Zu] somewhere later in the phrase. How about some examples of that?

Judith: [Ich komme nach Deutschland um Deutsch zu lernen].

Chuck: I come to Germany in order to learn German.

Judith: [Es ist zu kalt um raus zu gehen].

Chuck: It`s too cold to go out.

OUTRO

Chuck: Well, that just about does it for today. Like our podcasts?

Judith: Then like our Facebook page, too.

Chuck: Get lesson updates or german word of the day and news on Facebook.

Hello, GermanPod101 listeners! How do you like to practice German? Do you have any creative ways of working German into your life? Leave us a comment and tell us how!

GermanPod101.com

Thursday at 7:53 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hallo Mark,

danke für den Kommentar!

We’ll consider your feedback for our future development.

Regarding the noun gender, you can add the lesson vocabulary to your word bank where the noun gender is shown.

In Lesson Materials -> Vocabulary List, you’ll find the vocabulary of the lesson. You can select the words you want to add to your bank (click with the left mouse on the box next to the word; it’ll be marked/selected) and then click on “Add to Word Bank” .

To access your Word Bank, please select it in the upper menu: Vocabulary> Word bank or use the link:

https://www.germanpod101.com/learningcenter/account/wordbank

There’s also the German Dictionary that allows searching the word and in case it’s a noun, the gender will be informed:

https://www.germanpod101.com/learningcenter/reference/dictionary/

Let us know if you have any questions :wink:

Cristiane

Team GermanPod101.com

Mark Bauer

Saturday at 6:31 am

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

I am relatively new here. After a few lessons, I wish the opening German music would be eliminated.

It does nothing but consume time. Also wish the gender of nouns was always present with word lists.

I've been looking for something just like the podcast. I believe that it is a very good idea to learn German.

One can also use many other ideas, for example, I watch Indian films (coming from India) with German sub-titel. I think that would also be very helpful.

GermanPod101.com

Tuesday at 5:05 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hi Mustafa

Thank you for the comment.

Please have a closer look on GermanPod101.com, there you can find all materials for studying German properly. So, please start with video lessons for beginners, then you can also choose audio lessons and then we have the grammar section where you can download plenty of useful study materials. Please let me know if you need any other help.

Cheers

Jennifer

Team GermanPod101.com

Mostafa

Friday at 7:31 am

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hallo germanpod101

How could I get better in German words pronunciation.

Second I want to learn German faster thanks.

GermanPod101.com

Monday at 11:22 am

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hi Addie,

you are using many different ways to learn German, that is really brilliant! I'm sure it is a great help.

Keep up that very good work!

Katrin

Team GermanPod101.com

Addie

Saturday at 8:49 am

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Playing games that are in German (like computer games).

One in particular is a freeware game called "Voodoo". It's made by a German and is in the German language, but it's also in several other languages (including English) and it's very easy to switch between languages. Anyway, when you put your mouse over an object, it displays the name. So, like...if you put your mouse pointer over a tree it says "der Baum".

Watching German podcasts/videos: I like to watch eXtra-3 podcasts and they also have it on Youtube. Plus, Youtube also has clips from Dennis and Jesko. And Sesamstraße (Sesame Street) is also good.

Music is something else. A lot of the German I know I learned translating the lyrics to German songs and listening to them. And also making flash-cards of some of the words I was encountering.

Another thing is subscribing to the Stern.de Facebook page. I didn't read the website as much, but I used to frequently read the Facebook blog. And if I'm thinking of the right site, their website would have little quizzes sometimes, so that's another way.

Roylene

Monday at 5:31 am

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Can anyone tell me where you find the browser plugins mentioned in the lesson? It sounds as if they would be a great help. Vielen Dank

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